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The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as m

The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population. Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over time.

zmgsabst 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias What you’re describing is a cognitive bias. https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exercises/event-201-pandemic-tabletop-exercise https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci... You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.
- ElFitz 2y ago
  > it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs? If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter"). To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind. It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously. I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.
rob74 2y ago
Aside from conspiracy theories, remote working was already a thing before Covid, Covid just accelerated the process and showed to everyone that it worked. IMHO what we are now seeing is a "counter-revolution", an attempt to get the genie back into the bottle, and those are mostly doomed to fail...
maratc 2y ago
The conspiracy theories are frequently based on the optimistic idea that the world is under somebody's control. Mind you, it's a bad control, but the idea is still optimistic because we can theoretically have a revolution and put it under "good" control. The reality is much more depressing -- nobody is in the control. Not the Illuminati, not the Jewish bankers, and not the C-level executives conspiring to force RTO to maximize their investments in the (unrelated) commercial real estate. These all are just conspiracy theories.
- chii 2y ago
  > put it under "good" control. which implicitly means "their own" control!
DragonStrength 2y ago
It’s more there’s a bunch of people who put their life savings into cheap structures on expensive land in SF and Seattle. If the next generation of high income professionals doesn’t have to buy their shitty 100 year old money pit, they’ve now taken a loss on the single biggest purchase they’ve ever made while the schools they bought for get worse. Many of these folks work at places like Amazon. No conspiracy needed for a bunch of people to act in their own perceived best interest and work backwards to a justification.
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  If anyone needs a convenient label: game theory People need not work together to conspire, only vaguely in the same direction. Incentives do that like radio waves
- MiguelX413 2y ago
  Why would the interests of those companies be aligned with those of their landlords in the first place?
  - consteval 2y ago
    Because the leadership who makes decisions, or even just has the potential to voice their opinions and have them weighted, own real-estate. Better yet, those leaders maybe also love exerting control over their employees and find this more enjoyable in an office environment. Companies ARE NOT a democracy. In my mind, there's a huge overlap between being high company leadership and also being a self-serving narcissist. Are we then surprised that narcissists prefer to do things in their own self interests, and prefer to boss people around while looking at them? To me, that's not surprising at all. I think people don't understand these decisions aren't made by hundreds of people, but rather less than a handful per company.
    - MiguelX413 2y ago
      I think most people do understand that. It's just unintuitive that companies would prefer to pay rent for offices they don't need.
627467 2y ago
> global cabal Is that what we are calling business now? As if industry players don't buy media outlets precisely to push their narratives (look at tech outlets, crypto outlets, pharma etc). How is this a "cabal"? It's cheaper to just talk to your friend who owns business insider and also invests in the same RE funds to ask "journalists" to research on the topic. Also, plenty midmanagement in many industries love RTO: it's harder to justify their roles (and what they got promoted for) unless they have bags of flesh to oversee. It's not a cabal of midmanagement. It's just midmanagement slow pushing for RTO internally.
bravetraveler 2y ago
Game theory, not conspiracy

zmgsabst 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias What you’re describing is a cognitive bias. https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exercises/event-201-pandemic-tabletop-exercise https://centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/tabletop-exerci... You can believe COVID happened however you want — but it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset Similarly, those same elites wrote a book about how they want to use the authoritarian measures they implemented during COVID as a gateway to imposing their vision on society. Again, documented reality.

ElFitz 2y ago
> it’s documented reality that the elites practiced exactly the authoritarian response they used mere months before the virus outbreak. Isn’t that point of training and exercises? To be ready and have a plan when the situation you trained for actually occurs? If you read the John Hopkins’ Center for Health Security link you provided, they did similar exercises in 2018 ("Clade X"), 2005 ("Atlantic Storm"), and 2001 ("Dark Winter"). To me this doesn’t prove that there is a conspiracy of any kind. It simply and reassuringly shows that some of those who’s responsibility it is to be prepared for and help us collectively get through these kind of situations are actually taking their jobs somewhat seriously. I guess you could call that a conspiracy. A conspiracy to do their jobs well.

rob74 2y ago

Aside from conspiracy theories, remote working was already a thing before Covid, Covid just accelerated the process and showed to everyone that it worked. IMHO what we are now seeing is a "counter-revolution", an attempt to get the genie back into the bottle, and those are mostly doomed to fail...

maratc 2y ago

The conspiracy theories are frequently based on the optimistic idea that the world is under somebody's control. Mind you, it's a bad control, but the idea is still optimistic because we can theoretically have a revolution and put it under "good" control. The reality is much more depressing -- nobody is in the control. Not the Illuminati, not the Jewish bankers, and not the C-level executives conspiring to force RTO to maximize their investments in the (unrelated) commercial real estate. These all are just conspiracy theories.

chii 2y ago
> put it under "good" control. which implicitly means "their own" control!

DragonStrength 2y ago

It’s more there’s a bunch of people who put their life savings into cheap structures on expensive land in SF and Seattle. If the next generation of high income professionals doesn’t have to buy their shitty 100 year old money pit, they’ve now taken a loss on the single biggest purchase they’ve ever made while the schools they bought for get worse. Many of these folks work at places like Amazon. No conspiracy needed for a bunch of people to act in their own perceived best interest and work backwards to a justification.

bravetraveler 2y ago
If anyone needs a convenient label: game theory People need not work together to conspire, only vaguely in the same direction. Incentives do that like radio waves
MiguelX413 2y ago
Why would the interests of those companies be aligned with those of their landlords in the first place?
- consteval 2y ago
  Because the leadership who makes decisions, or even just has the potential to voice their opinions and have them weighted, own real-estate. Better yet, those leaders maybe also love exerting control over their employees and find this more enjoyable in an office environment. Companies ARE NOT a democracy. In my mind, there's a huge overlap between being high company leadership and also being a self-serving narcissist. Are we then surprised that narcissists prefer to do things in their own self interests, and prefer to boss people around while looking at them? To me, that's not surprising at all. I think people don't understand these decisions aren't made by hundreds of people, but rather less than a handful per company.
  - MiguelX413 2y ago
    I think most people do understand that. It's just unintuitive that companies would prefer to pay rent for offices they don't need.

627467 2y ago

> global cabal Is that what we are calling business now? As if industry players don't buy media outlets precisely to push their narratives (look at tech outlets, crypto outlets, pharma etc). How is this a "cabal"? It's cheaper to just talk to your friend who owns business insider and also invests in the same RE funds to ask "journalists" to research on the topic. Also, plenty midmanagement in many industries love RTO: it's harder to justify their roles (and what they got promoted for) unless they have bags of flesh to oversee. It's not a cabal of midmanagement. It's just midmanagement slow pushing for RTO internally.

bravetraveler 2y ago

Game theory, not conspiracy